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Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG [Abstract] Understanding the environmental response to the last glacial termination in regions located in transitional climate zones such as the Atlantic Iberian mountains is crucial to estimate potential changes in regions affected by current glacial melting. We present an 8.5 m-long, solid last deglaciation and Holocene chronostratigraphic record including detailed sediment analysis from Lake Peixão, a pro-glacial lake in the Serra da Estrela (Central Portugal). The age–depth model relies on a Bayesian approach that includes 16 AMS 14C dates and 210Pb–137CS measurements, robustly dating the lake formation at 14.7 ± 0.32 cal. ka BP. This chronological reconstruction shows an average sedimentation rate of ca. 0.07 cm yr−1 (15 yr cm−1), enabling proxy analyses at decadal timescales. The sediment sequence is composed of five lithological units: (U1) coarse and unsorted fluvioglacial lacustrine deposits; (U2) massive fluvioglacial lacustrine deposits (863–790 cm below surface [bsf]; 14.7 ± 0.32–13.8 ± 0.12 cal. ka BP); (U3) water current fluvioglacial lacustrine deposits (790–766 cm bsf; 13.8 ± 0.12–12.9 ± 0.29 cal. ka BP); (U4) laminated/banded lacustrine deposits characterized by terrigenous deposits from ice-covered lake periods and episodic events of ice and snow melting (766–752 cm bsf; 12.9 ± 0.29–11.7 ± 0.15 cal. ka BP); and (U5) massive muddy lacustrine deposits (752–0 cm bsf; 11.7 ± 0.15 cal. ka BP–present). The occurrence of U2 to U4 deposits defines the transition from glacial cold (U1) to net warm postglacial conditions (U5). These climate transitions are marked by changes in sediments and the presence of very low sedimentation rate periods, possibly related to the Intra-Allerød Cold Period and the coldest phase of the Younger Dryas. Our results support the previously proposed timing of the retreat of the Serra da Estrela glaciers ca. 13.8 ± 0.12 cal. ka BP. The robust chronology of Lake Peixão highlights the potential of Iberian pro-glacial lakes for dating deglaciation processes and will lead to unprecedented decadal-to-centennial timescale palaeoclimate reconstructions in this region since the last glacial–interglacial transition. This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT, through the HOLMODRIVE project (PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017). A. Hernandez is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the Ramón y Cajal Scheme [RYC2020-029253-I]. C. Martin-Puertas is funded by UKRI-FLF MR/W009641/1. G. Gil-Romera is funded by the DFG project FOR2358 ‘The Mountain Exile Hypothesis’. Pedro M. Raposeiro was funded by the Portuguese Science Foundation through contract DL57/2016/ICETA/EEC2018/25. Alexandre M. Ramos is funded by the Helmholtz ‘Changing Earth’ programme. Funding for open access charge: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG. The Estrela UNESCO Global Geopark is thanked for their support with field activities and permissions. The Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela (ICNF) provided research permits. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; FOR2358 Portugal. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; DL57/2016/ICETA/EEC2018/25 Portugal. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017 UK Research and Innovation; UKRI-FLF MR/W009641/1

The floods that struck lower Tagus valley in February 1979 correspond to the most intense floods in this river and affected the largest number of people in a river flow event in Portugal, during the last 150 years. In fact, the vast area affected impacted significantly circa 10k people in the lower Tagus sector (and an additional 7k in other regions of Portugal), including thousands of people evacuated or made homeless. In this context, the present study focuses on an in depth analysis of this event from a hydrodynamic perspective by means of Iber+ numerical model and on developing strategies to mitigate the flood episodes that occur in the lower section of the Tagus river using the outstating floods of February 1979 as benchmark. In this sense, several large dams and reservoirs are located along the Tagus river basin, and for that, dam operating strategies were developed and analyzed to take advantage of these infrastructures to minimize the effect of floods. Overall, the numerical results indicate a good agreement with water marks and some descriptions of the 1979 flood event, which demonstrates the model capability to evaluate floods in the area under study. Regarding flood mitigation, obtained results indicate that the frequency of floods can be reduced with the proposed strategies. In addition, hydraulic simulations corroborated an important decrease in water depth and velocity for the most extreme flood events, and also a certain reduction of flood extension was detected. This confirms the effectiveness of the proposed strategies to help in reducing flood impact in lower Tagus valley through the efficient functioning of dams.

Extensive, long-standing dry and wet episodes are two of the most frequent climatic extreme events in the Iberian Peninsula. Here, a method for ranking regional extremes of persistent, widespread drought and wet events is presented, considering different timescales. The method is based on the multi-scalar Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) gridded dataset for the Iberian Peninsula. Climatic Research Unit (CRU) data are used to compute the SPEI between 1901 and 2016 by means of a log-logistic probability distribution function. The potential evapotranspiration (PET) is computed using the Penman–Monteith equation. The ranking classification method is based on the assessment of the magnitude of an event, which is obtained after considering both the area affected by the respective dryness or wetness – defined by SPEI values over a certain threshold – and its intensity in each grid point. A sensitivity analysis of the impact of different thresholds used to define dry and wet events is also performed. For both the dry and wet periods, this simple yet robust tool allows for the identification and ranking of well-known regional extremes of persistent, extensive dry and wet periods at different timescales. A comprehensive dataset of rankings of the most extreme, prolonged, widespread dry and wet periods in the Iberian Peninsula is presented for aggregated timescales of 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. Results show that no region in the Iberian Peninsula is more prone to the occurrence of any of these long-term (dry and/or wet) extreme events. Finally, it is highlighted that the application of this methodology to other domains and periods represents an important tool for extensive, long-standing, extreme event assessment worldwide.

One of the most robust signals of climate change is the relentless rise in global mean surface temperature, which is linked closely with the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere. A more humid atmosphere will lead to enhanced moisture transport due to, among other factors, an intensification of atmospheric rivers (ARs) activity, which are an important mechanism of moisture advection from subtropical to extra-tropical regions. Here we show an enhanced evapotranspiration rates in association with landfalling atmospheric river events. These anomalous moisture uptake (AMU) locations are identified on a global scale. The interannual variability of AMU displays a significant increase over the period 1980-2017, close to the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) scaling, at 7 % per degree of surface temperature rise. These findings are consistent with an intensification of AR predicted by future projections. Our results also reveal generalized significant increases in AMU at the regional scale and an asymmetric supply of oceanic moisture, in which the maximum values are located over the region known as the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP) centred on the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea., Increasing atmospheric temperatures are expected to have various impacts on the global water cycle. Here, the authors show that there is an intensification of atmospheric rivers, that causes enhanced evapotranspiration and thus atmospheric moisture uptake in many regions of the world.

University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations Grant W912HZ-15-2-0019 Scientific Employment Stimulus 2017 from FCT CEECIND/00027/2017

A large fraction of extreme precipitation and flood events across western Europe are triggered by atmospheric rivers (ARs). The association between ARs and extreme precipitation days over the Iberian Peninsula has been well documented for western river basins. Since ARs are often associated with high impact weather, it is important to study their medium-range predictability. Here we perform such an assessment using the ECMWF ensemble forecasts up to 15 d for events where ARs made landfall in the western Iberian Peninsula during the winters spanning between 2012–2013 and 2015–2016. Vertically integrated horizontal water vapor transport (IVT) and precipitation from the 51 ensemble members of the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) ensemble (ENS) were processed over a domain including western Europe and the contiguous North Atlantic Ocean. Metrics concerning AR location, intensity, and orientation were computed, in order to compare the predictive skill (for different prediction lead times) of IVT and precipitation. We considered several regional boxes over western Iberia, where the presence of ARs is detected in analysis/forecasts, enabling the construction of contingency tables and probabilistic evaluation for further objective verification of forecast accuracy. Our results indicate that the ensemble forecasts have skill in detecting upcoming AR events, which can be particularly useful to better predict potential hydrometeorological extremes. We also characterized how the ENS dispersion and confidence curves change with increasing forecast lead times for each sub-domain. The probabilistic evaluation, using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, shows that for short lead times precipitation forecasts are more accurate than IVT forecasts, while for longer lead times this reverses (∼10 d). Furthermore, we show that this reversal occurs for shorter lead times in areas where the AR contribution is more relevant for winter precipitation totals (e.g., northwestern Iberia).

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are characterized by intense moisture transport, which, on landfall, produce precipitation which can be both beneficial and destructive. ARs in California, for example, are known to have ended drought conditions but also to have caused substantial socio-economic damage from landslides and flooding linked to extreme precipitation. Understanding how AR characteristics will respond to a warming climate is, therefore, vital to the resilience of communities affected by them, such as the western USA, Europe, East Asia and South Africa. In this Review, we use a theoretical framework to synthesize understanding of the dynamic and thermodynamic responses of ARs to anthropogenic warming and connect them to observed and projected changes and impacts revealed by observations and complex models. Evidence suggests that increased atmospheric moisture (governed by Clausius–Clapeyron scaling) will enhance the intensity of AR-related precipitation — and related hydrological extremes — but with changes that are ultimately linked to topographic barriers. However, due to their dependency on both weather and climate-scale processes, which themselves are often poorly constrained, projections are uncertain. To build confidence and improve resilience, future work must focus efforts on characterizing the multiscale development of ARs and in obtaining observations from understudied regions, including the West Pacific, South Pacific and South Atlantic. Due to their intense moisture transport, atmospheric rivers are associated with hydrological hazards such as extreme rainfall and flooding. This Review discusses how atmospheric-river characteristics and impacts may change with warming, synthesizing physical theory, observations and modelling.

Moisture transport over the northeastern Atlantic Ocean is an important process governing precipitation distribution and variability over western Europe. To assess its long-term variability, the vertically integrated horizontal water vapor transport (IVT) from a long-term climate simulation spanning the period 850–2100 CE was used. Results show a steady increase in moisture transport toward western Europe since the late-nineteenth century that is projected to expand during the twenty-first century under the RCP8.5 scenario. The projected IVT for 2070–99 significantly exceeds the range given by interannual–interdecadal variability of the last millennium. Changes in IVT are in line with significant increases in tropospheric moisture content, driven by the concurrent rise in surface temperatures associated with the anthropogenic climate trend. On regional scales, recent and projected precipitation changes over the British Isles follow the global positive IVT trend, whereas a robust precipitation decrease over Iberia is identified in the twenty-first century, particularly during autumn. This indicates a possible extension of stable and dry summer conditions and a decoupling between moisture availability and dynamical forcing. The investigation of circulation features reveals a mean poleward shift of moisture corridors and associated atmospheric rivers. In particular, in Iberia, a significant increase in the frequency of dry weather types is observed, accompanied by a decrease in the frequency of wet types. An opposite response is observed over the British Isles. These changes imply a stronger meridional north–south dipole in terms of pressure and precipitation distributions, enhancing the transport toward central Europe rather than to Iberia.

Record-breaking natural hazards occur regularly throughout the world, leading to a variety of impacts [1]. According to the WMO, since 1970 there were more than 11000 reported disasters attributed to these hazards globally, with just over 2 million deaths and US$ 3.64 trillion in losses [2]. From 1970 to 2019, weather, climate and water hazards accounted for 50% of all disasters, 45% of all reported deaths and 74% of all reported economic losses [2]. Droughts and heatwaves are both included in the top 4 disasters in terms of human losses [2], with uneven impacts throughout the world and a high likelihood that anthropogenic climate forcing will increase economic inequality between countries [3].Nowadays there is strong evidence that droughts and heatwaves are at times synergetic and that their combined occurrence is largely caused by land-atmosphere feedbacks [4]. In fact, increasing trends of Compound Dry and Hot (CDH) events have been observed in both South America [5,6] and Europe [7,8], some of them with aggravated impacts. Specifically, the severe 2020 Pantanal extreme fire season (Brazil) resulted from the interplay between extreme and persistent temperatures (maximum temperatures 6 ºC above-average) and long-term soil dryness conditions [6]. Similarly, in the Iberian Peninsula, CDH events were shown to have an influence on the dramatic 2017 fire season [9] and also on crop losses [8]. Moreover, future climate projections suggest that CDH conditions are expected to become more common in a warming climate [4]. Therefore, it is very important to address weather events in a compound manner, identifying synergies, driving mechanisms and dominant atmospheric modes controlling single and combined hazards.[1] IPCC, 2021: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of WGI to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte V. et al., (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. [2] WHO, 2021. Weather-related disasters increase over past 50 years, causing more damage but fewer deaths, https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/weather-related-disasters-increase-over-past-50-years-causing-more-damage-fewer[3] Diffenbaugh N.S., Burke M. (2019) Global warming has increased global economic inequality, PNAS, 116, 20, 9808-9813[4] Zscheischler J. et al. (2018). Future climate risk from compound events. Nat. Clim. Change, 8, 469–477.[5] Geirinhas J.L. et al. (2021). Recent increasing frequency of compound summer drought and heatwaves in Southeast Brazil. Environ. Res. Lett., 16(3).[6] Libonati R. et al (2022) Assessing the role of compound drought and heatwave events on unprecedented 2020 wildfires in the Pantanal, Environ. Res. Lett. 17 015005.[7] Geirinhas J.L. et al. (2020) Heat-related mortality at the beginning of the twenty-first century in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Int. J. Biometeorol., 64, 1319–1332[8] Russo A. et al. (2019) The synergy between drought and extremely hot summers in the Mediterranean. Environ. Res. Lett., 14, 014011[9] Ribeiro A.F.S. et al. (2020) Risk of crop failure due to compound dry and hot extremes estimated with nested copulas. Biogeosciences, 17, 4815–4830[10] Turco M. et al. (2019) Climate drivers of the 2017 devastating fires in Portugal. Sci. Rep., 9, 1 This work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal) under projects PTDC/CTA-CLI/28902/2017, PTDC/CTA-CLI/28902/2017 and FCT- UIDB/50019/2020 –IDL.

As observed worldwide during the last decades, landslides are one of the deadliest natural hazards in mainland Portugal and Azores archipelago being responsible for significant direct and indirect societal and economic losses, justifying the implementation of a landslide early warning system at the regional scale.The BeSafeSlide project aims to develop and implement a soft technology/low-cost prototype for precipitation-triggered landslide early warning system (LEWS) in Portugal. We plan it to allow be adaptable to a changing climate and a changing land use by working with different climate scenarios. Future changes on regional rainfall patterns due to climate change were evaluated in the LEWS for 2071-2100 period, considering two emission scenarios: RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. To evaluate future exposure trends and effects in risk analysis, simulations of changes in land use, by the end of the 21th century, will be carried out. The uncertainty of future projections will be addressed by developing a set of different scenarios.The LEWS prototype for Portugal is sustained on different types of regional rainfall thresholds for landslide occurrence based on daily/hourly rainfall series available for each BeSafeSlide study area. The proposed prototype aims at integrating 3-day rainfall forecasts on rainfall thresholds monitoring and on dynamic physically based susceptibility models, to anticipate changes in hydrological conditions and consequently on the spatio-temporal occurrence of landslides. Special attention is given to two different types of rainfall-triggered landslide events, recognized as responsible for shallow and deep-seated landslides occurrence on natural slopes, which are permanently monitored within the regional early warning system in hotspot risk areas: (i) landslide events associated to intense, short-duration rainfall periods; and (ii) landslide events associated to long-lasting rainfall periods.The LEWS main goals are to provide information to civil protection services to anticipate and manage people’s evacuation from landslide prone areas and to ensure the maintenance and operability of regional transport, energy and communications networks and the safeguarding of people´s lives. Although the LEWS is being developed within the framework of Portugal we expect to be applicable in different settings. The application of the LEWS will define warning communication procedures, assess response capacity of stakeholders and develop social capacity practices, to reduce vulnerability and mitigate risk, providing a reduction of affected people, economic losses and critical infrastructures/basic services disruptions.Acknowledgments: This work was financed by national funds through FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology, I. P.), in the framework of the project BeSafeSlide – Landslide early warning soft technology prototype to improve community resilience and adaptation to environmental change (PTDC/GES-AMB/30052/2017), and the Research Unit UIDB/00295/2020 and UIDP/00295/2020.

The Serra da Estrela range in Central Portugal is a key region to explore the Last Glacial termination in the Atlantic region of Iberia. We present the Late Glacial and Holocene record of Lake Peixão to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions at decadal timescales. We retrieved an 8.5m long core in the central and deepest zone of the lake. From the base to the top, the sediment core is composed of i) a thick layer (aprox. 0.5 m) of gravel-to-sand quartz clasts; ii) an alternation of one meter thick grey to pale-brown sandy deposits; and iii) homogeneous dark brown and pale-brown organic-rich muddy facies (ca. 7 meters). Using a Bayesian statistical model based on 16 radiocarbon dates using pollen concentrated samples and 210Pb measurements, we have developed an age-depth model covering the last ca. 14.6 ka, recording the onset of the lake at that time. Lake and mire records previously published in the area generally support this chronology for the formation of proglacial lakes. In addition, the proposed timing for the disappearance of the Serra da Estrela glaciers has been based on Cosmic-Ray Exposure dating (in situ cosmogenic 36Cl) of exposed moraine boulders and glacially polished bedrock surfaces. These results indicate that the end of the glacier’s presence in Serra da Estrela occurred at ca. 14.2 ka BP (during the Bølling-Allerød Interstadial). Therefore our results broadly suport the timing of the end of the deglaciation at the Serra da Estrela and highlight the value of lake sedimentary records. Moreover, the availability of last termination and Holocene highly-resolved sediments from Lake Peixão is likely to record very valuable evidence of climatic and environmental changes at decadal timescales extending from the last deglaciation, through the Holocene. This new multi-proxy data of the Lake Peixão sedimentary sequence will enable comparisons to other decadal-resolved records and support further investigations from the Mediterranean Iberian region.The financial support for this work was possible through the following FCT project: HOLMODRIVE—North Atlantic Atmospheric Patterns Influence on Western Iberia Climate: From the Late Glacial to the Present (PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017).

It is expected that landslide events will occur more frequently, throughout the century, as a direct consequence of climate change. The main triggering factor, over Portugal mainland, is extreme precipitation. Thus, the aim of this study relied on the assessment of the projected future changes in the extreme precipitation over Portugal mainland and quantifying the correlation between extreme rainfall events and landslide events through Rainfall Triggering Thresholds (RTT). This methodology was applied for two specific locations within two Portuguese areas of great geomorphological interest.To evaluate the possible projected changes in the extreme precipitation, we used the Iberia02 dataset and the EURO-CORDEX models’ runs at a 0.11º spatial resolution. First, it was analyzed the models’ performance to simulate extreme values in the precipitation series. The simulated precipitation relied on RCM-GCM models’ runs, from EURO-CORDEX, and a Multimodel ensemble mean. The extreme precipitation assessment relied on the values associated to the highest percentiles, and to the values associated to the RTTs’ percentiles. To evaluate the possible future changes of the precipitation series, both at the most representative percentiles and RTTs’ percentiles, a comparison was made between the simulated values from EURO-CORDEX historical runs (1971-2000) and the simulated values from EURO-CORDEX future runs (2071-2100), considering two emission scenarios: RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. In the models’ performance, the Multimodel ensemble mean appeared to be within the best representing models. As for the projected changes in the extreme precipitation for the end of the century, when following the RCP 4.5 scenario, most models projected an increase in the extreme values, whereas, when following the RCP 8.5 scenario, most models projected a decrease in the extreme values. AcknowledgementsThis work was financed by national funds through FCT–Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., under the framework of the project BeSafeSlide (PTDC/GES-AMB/30052/2017)

The compound-specific signal of leaf wax n-alkanes can be used for reconstructing climatic and environmental changes. This work assesses the carbon and hydrogen isotopic compositions of sedimentary n-alkanes from a high-mountain lake record (Lake Peixão) in Serra da Estrela (Western Iberia, Portugal) over the last 2000 years.Our interpretations are supported by the modern settings of the lake and the long-chain n-alkanes characterization of the modern vegetation in the lake’s watershed. The δ13C signal of long-chain n-alkanes (C29 – C33) suggests that terrestrial vegetation, dominated by C3 heathlands and grass mosaics, did not change significantly since the last 2000 years. In contrast, δ13C signatures of C25 and C27, associated with aquatic plants inputs, reveal a more enriched and variable signal, suggesting these compounds as indicators of water availability in the studied area. In this high-altitude setting, temperature significantly controls water availability and the δD signal of terrestrial plants (δDterr), which shows major changes across the last 2000 years. In contrast, aquatic-derived n-alkanes (δDaq) show a relatively constant and stable water source. These data enabled us to detect major climate shifts in the region and evaluate the role of the main drivers (solar activity and the North Atlantic Oscillation-NAO) in those long-term changes prior to intense human activities.The Roman Period (0 – 500 AD) was relatively dry but shifting from a warm to a cold phase, under a predominant positive mode of NAO and a Grand solar maxima. From the Dark Ages until the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (500 – 1300 AD), the climate was generally mild and wet under a nonstationary mode of NAO and a gradual decrease in solar irradiance. The LIA (ca. 1350 – 1850 AD) was composed by two main phases: the first cold and wet followed by an extreme cold episode; both under a predominantly negative NAO mode. The extreme cooling (centered at 1700 AD), coincident with the Maunder Minimum, was driven by the southward displacement of the polar front, causing extended periods of ice cover on the lake. The climate became warm and dry since 1880 AD, coinciding decrease in vegetation capability to buffer the runoff energy and promote the observed high sedimentation rate during this period, probably due to increased anthropogenic impact. This work also underlines the sensitive nature of the high-mountain lake ecosystems and contributes to the spatial coverage of paleoclimate studies in the Atlantic region of the Iberian Peninsula.AcknowledgmentsThe authors are grateful to FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) for the financial support of this work through the projects: HOLMODRIVE—North Atlantic Atmospheric Patterns Influence on Western Iberia Climate: From the Late Glacial to the Present (PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017). WarmWorld—Features, and lessons from Past Interglacials “warm periods” during the last 1.5 Ma (PTDC/CTA-GEO/29897/2017). RNS´s grant supported by Ultimatum—Understanding past climatic instabilities in the North Atlantic Region (IF/01489/2015)

The Atmospheric River (AR) Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP) is a community effort to systematically assess how the uncertainties from AR detectors (ARDTs) impact our scientific understanding of ARs. This study describes the ARTMIP Tier 2 experimental design and initial results using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Phases 5 and 6 multi-model ensembles. We show that AR statistics from a given ARDT in CMIP5/6 historical simulations compare remarkably well with the MERRA-2 reanalysis. In CMIP5/6 future simulations, most ARDTs project a global increase in AR frequency, counts, and sizes, especially along the western coastlines of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. We find that the choice of ARDT is the dominant contributor to the uncertainty in projected AR frequency when compared with model choice. These results imply that new projects investigating future changes in ARs should explicitly consider ARDT uncertainty as a core part of the experimental design.

The study of atmospheric rivers (ARs) and their impacts on extreme precipitation are currently of great research interest in view of their clear socioeconomical implications. However, studies of this type generally contain caveats. The first of these is of a meteorological nature, and is concerned with the diversity of the different meteorological patterns that can be associated in the phenomenological definition, in that there is no guarantee that all so-called ARs follow the same one. The second concern involves the initial definition of an AR, which implicitly assumes the subtropical origin of the atmospheric moisture that feeds it. To date, it has been observed that in many cases of ARs, most of the moisture originates in regions at higher latitudes. The aim of this article is to open a debate on these two aspects by using well-known examples of ARs which fit different meteorological patterns, and showing a climatology of the moisture sources that feed ARs. Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUG Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. RTI2018-095772-B-I00 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. CGL2015-65141-R Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. PTDC/CTA-MET/29233/2017 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. CEECIND/00027/2017 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C 2021/44 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. EDB481B 2018/06

The physical understanding and timely prediction of extreme weather events are of enormous importance to society regarding associated impacts. In this article, we highlight several types of weather extremes occurring in Europe in connection with a particular atmospheric flow pattern, known as atmospheric blocking. This flow pattern effectively blocks the prevailing westerly large-scale atmospheric flow, resulting in changing flow anomalies in the vicinity of the blocking system and persistent conditions in the immediate region of its occurrence. Blockings are long-lasting, quasi-stationary, self-sustaining systems that occur frequently over certain regions. Their presence and characteristics have an impact on the predictability of weather extremes and can thus be used as potential indicators. The phasing between the surface and the upper-level blocking anomalies is of major importance for the development of the extreme event. In summer, heat waves and droughts form below the blocking anticyclone primarily via large-scale subsidence that leads to cloud-free skies and thus, persistent longwave radiative warming of the ground. In winter, cold waves that occur during atmospheric blocking are normally observed downstream or south of these systems. Here, horizontal advection of cold air masses from higher latitudes plays a decisive role. Extreme snowfall can also occur with the lower temperatures, indicating a shift of the storm track due to the blocking system. Such a shift is also crucial in the connection of blocking with wind and precipitation anomalies in general. Due to this multifaceted linkages, compound events are often observed in conjunction with blocking conditions.

Compound weather and climate events are combinations of climate drivers and/or hazards that contribute to societal or environmental risk. Studying compound events often requires a multidisciplinary...

Author(s): Rutz, JJ; Shields, CA; Lora, JM; Payne, AE; Guan, B; Ullrich, P; O’Brien, T; Leung, LR; Ralph, FM; Wehner, M; Brands, S; Collow, A; Goldenson, N; Gorodetskaya, I; Griffith, H; Kashinath, K; Kawzenuk, B; Krishnan, H; Kurlin, V; Lavers, D; Magnusdottir, G; Mahoney, K; McClenny, E; Muszynski, G; Nguyen, PD; Prabhat, M; Qian, Y; Ramos, AM; Sarangi, C; Sellars, S; Shulgina, T; Tome, R; Waliser, D; Walton, D; Wick, G; Wilson, AM; Viale, M | Abstract: Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are now widely known for their association with high-impact weather events and long-term water supply in many regions. Researchers within the scientific community have developed numerous methods to identify and track of ARs—a necessary step for analyses on gridded data sets, and objective attribution of impacts to ARs. These different methods have been developed to answer specific research questions and hence use different criteria (e.g., geometry, threshold values of key variables, and time dependence). Furthermore, these methods are often employed using different reanalysis data sets, time periods, and regions of interest. The goal of the Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP) is to understand and quantify uncertainties in AR science that arise due to differences in these methods. This paper presents results for key AR-related metrics based on 20+ different AR identification and tracking methods applied to Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 reanalysis data from January 1980 through June 2017. We show that AR frequency, duration, and seasonality exhibit a wide range of results, while the meridional distribution of these metrics along selected coastal (but not interior) transects are quite similar across methods. Furthermore, methods are grouped into criteria-based clusters, within which the range of results is reduced. AR case studies and an evaluation of individual method deviation from an all-method mean highlight advantages/disadvantages of certain approaches. For example, methods with less (more) restrictive criteria identify more (less) ARs and AR-related impacts. Finally, this paper concludes with a discussion and recommendations for those conducting AR-related research to consider.

Remote-sensing techniques are currently the only means of collecting information to monitor the atmospheric dynamics of lightning from the regional to the national scales, allowing for the generation of homogeneous and long time series. Attempts to characterize the impacts of atmospheric discharge in Brazil presuppose an understanding of spatial and temporal lightning patterns. Despite the high frequency of lightning and significant disturbances caused in highly populated regions such as the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro (MRRJ), these phenomena are not well characterized when using a long-term contemporaneous dataset. Accordingly, this work focuses on the spatial and temporal variability of cloud-to-ground lightning in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, an area affected by a high level of atmospheric discharge every year. We performed a statistical analysis of lightning data taken from a lightning location system for the 16-year period of 2001–2016 and analysed characteristics such as polarity, peak currents, geographic distributions and diurnal, intra- and inter-annual variability. Extremely high levels of high activity were observed from 258,794 cloud-to-ground lightning events recorded over the analysed period and for 64.3% events occurring in summer, 20.5% events occurring in spring and 12.9%, and 2.3% events occurring in autumn and winter. The discharge events were predominantly negative (93.54% of the total). Peak levels of electrical activity were observed from roughly 18:00 to 19:00 local time, when there is more potential energy available for convection. The results of the spatial analysis reveal that most lightning observed over Rio de Janeiro derived from the orographic effect, which spurs the formation of convective storms along the southern part of the slope.

The extratropical cyclones that originate in the North Atlantic and propagate towards Europe are one of the major natural hazards in mid-latitudes. In December 2019, three consecutive extratropical cyclones named Daniel, Elsa, and Fabien affected Portugal. In this study, the synoptic and upper-level dynamic conditions associated with these systems during their impact in mainland Portugal are evaluated. The persistent intense zonal flow that crossed the entire Atlantic revealed by the integrated vapor transport and the vertically integrated moisture flux favored these hydro-meteorological systems. The patterns of mean sea level pressure, geopotential, potential vorticity, total column water, and convective available potential energy were used to characterize the influence of every system over mainland Portugal. A cluster analysis of monthly precipitation permitted the classification of the country into four main regions named the Northwest, Centre West, Northeast and Centre East, and South region on which the analysis was focused. The three storms affected every region on consecutive days by the middle of December, producing extreme precipitation events and significant effects on the accumulated rainfall and runoff, particularly in the Northwest, Centre West, Northeast and Centre East regions. As consequence, multiple incidences of damage were reported along mainland Portugal. However, an assessment of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation–Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) on time scales of 1, 3, 6, and 12 months revealed a positive impact of rainfall increase on the attenuation of short and long term accumulated drought conditions, particularly in the center and north regions. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. UIDB/50019/2020–IDL Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. PTDC/CTAMET/29233/2017 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C 2017/64-GRC; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España) | Ref. RTI2018-095772-B-I00 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B 2019/070 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B 2018/062 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal) | Ref. CEECIND / 00027/2017

Located between the temperate and arid climates of Europe and North Africa, Iberia is one of the most climatic vulnerable regions of Europe with more severe and longstanding extreme climate events being expected in this region. The Iberian climate, mainly in winter, is modulated by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Persistent positive (negative) NAO phases, can lead to significant changes in the North Atlantic westerly wind-belts, resulting in strengthened (weakened) winter precipitation in Western Iberia.The Iberian Central System mountain range constitutes one of the biggest physical barriers to the moist air masses coming from the Atlantic Ocean. Usually, under low anthropic influence, the high mountain lake ecosystems have sensitive responses to climate and environmental changes, which makes lake sediments a pristine record for paleo reconstructions.The increasing number of studies on Iberian high lakes depicted a wide spectrum of spatiotemporal variability in climate and environmental conditions for the last few millennia. However, the paucity of archives from the western region hampers the understanding of the effect of major climate forcings on different climate periods.In this sense, to assess the past hydroclimatic patterns over western Iberia, we study upper 120 cm sediments of a 5 m core retrieved from a high mountain lake in central Portugal (Lake Peixão, Serra da Estrela). The age and depth model provides a robust chronology of the last 3600 years based on four 14C AMS dating on pollen concentrates and 137Cs and 210Pb profiles.Here we present the preliminary results on sedimentary lipid biomarker (leaf wax n-alkane) and compound-specific hydrogen isotope (δDwax) analysis performed at centennial time scale resolution. n-Alkane characterization, based on diverse indices (e.g., ACL, CPI, Paq, relative percentages, etc.), shows a clear higher plant signal, with a strong odd-over-even carbon predominance of long-chain n-alkanes, and predominance of the C31 homologue. Principal component analysis (PCA) applied to the odd n-alkanes (C17 – C35) concentrations reduced the data dimensionality into two principal components (PC). The PC1 mostly represents total n-alkane concentrations. PC2 has a positive correlation with Paq, C27, and δD signals, while a high negative correlation with ACL. Another important feature of the PC2 signal is its parallelism with NAO index reconstructions.Our new data show a sensitive response from the lake catchment vegetation to hydroclimatic variability and allow the reconstruction of climatic phases occurring in this region based on plant waxes from Lake Peixão.AcknowledgmentsThe financial support for this work was possible through the following FCT project: HOLMODRIVE—North Atlantic Atmospheric Patterns Influence on Western Iberia Climate: From the Late Glacial to the Present (PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017).

One of the World Climate Research Programme Grand Challenges is to evaluate whether existing observations are enough to underpin the assessment of weather and climate extremes. In this study, we focus on extreme associated with Atmospheric Rivers (ARs). ARs are characterized by intense moisture transport usually from the tropics to the extra-tropics. They can either be beneficial, providing critical water supply, or hazardous, when excessive precipitation accumulation leads to floods. Here, we examine the uncertainty in gridded precipitation products included in the Frequent Rainfall Observations on GridS (FROGS) database during two atmospheric river events in distinct Mediterranean climates: one in California, USA, and another in Portugal. FROGS is composed of gridded daily-precipitation products on a common 1∘×1∘ grid to facilitate intercomparison and assessment exercises. The database includes satellite, ground-based and reanalysis products. Results show that the precipitation products based on satellite data, individually or combined with other products, perform least well in capturing daily precipitation totals over land during both cases studied here. The reanalysis and the gauge-based products show the best agreement with local ground stations. As expected, there is an overall underestimation of precipitation by the different products. For the Portuguese AR, the multi-product ensembles reveal mean absolute percentage errors between -25% and -60%. For the Western US case, the range is from -60% to -100 %. AcknowledgmentsThe financial support for this work was possible through the following FCT project: HOLMODRIVE—North Atlantic Atmospheric Patterns Influence on Western Iberia Climate: From the Late Glacial to the Present (PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017). A.M. Ramos was supported by the Scientific Employment Stimulus 2017 from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, CEECIND/00027/2017).

This manuscript applies the recently-created atmospheric river intensity and impacts scale (AR Scale) to the European continent. The AR Scale uses an Eulerian perspective based solely upon the time series of integrated vapor transport (IVT) over a given geographic location (often represented by a model or reanalysis “grid cell”). The scale assigns events with persistent, strong IVT at that location to one of five levels (AR1 to AR5), or if the IVT is too weak or short-lived it is determined not to be an AR. AR1 events are primarily beneficial, AR2, 3 and 4 include a mix of beneficial and hazardous impacts, while AR5s are primarily hazardous. The frequency of occurrence, the associated probability of anomalous precipitation and the amount of precipitation explained by each AR rank are provided across Europe for the extended winter season (from October through March). AR1 and AR2 events are the most frequent and explain most of the observed precipitation, but they are associated with a low probability of extreme rainfall. Although AR3, AR4 and AR5 events are much less frequent, and normally provide a smaller fraction of annual precipitation, they are associated with a high probability of extreme rainfall. These results show remarkable variability among the different regions of the European continent. This manuscript also provides an AR detection catalog over Europe for the period 1980–2019, and a simplified version of the algorithm used to rank the events from AR1 to AR5 Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUG Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B 2018/069 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B 2018/062 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. CGL2015-65141-R Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C 2017/64-GRC Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia | Ref. CEECIND / 00027/2017 Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia | Ref. PTDC / CTA-MET / 29233/2017 Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. RTI2018-095772-B-I00

Globally, mountain systems are unevenly exposed to risks of extreme precipitation. Within the Himalayan region, precipitation extremes are a rising concern, but their current understanding is limited. In this study, we use 113 years of precipitation data to rank and characterize precipitation extremes in the Indian Western Himalayas (IWH). Our statistical ranking method integrates precipitation spatial extent and its intensity across different durations for determining the severity of extreme events. The proposed ranking method accounts for multi-day duration ranking method to capture persistent precipitation episodes. Results show that the method accurately detects and ranks the most extreme precipitation events that occurred in the IWH and indicate locations of these events. Our results highlight that critical long duration events in the region (e.g., 10 days) are missed at ranks at shorter duration (e.g., 2–3 days), thereby highlighting the importance to multi-day precipitation extremes ranking. In addition, the proposed ranking method provides information about the event duration that will be associated with the highest impact on society, carrying high significance. Our findings are valuable for flood risk management and disaster risk reduction.

Compound weather and climate events are combinations of climate drivers and/or hazards that contribute to societal or environmental risk. Studying compound events often requires a multidisciplinary approach combining domain knowledge of the underlying processes with, for example, statistical methods and climate model outputs. Recently, to aid the development of research on compound events, four compound event types were introduced, namely (a) preconditioned, (b) multivariate, (c) temporally compounding, and (d) spatially compounding events. However, guidelines on how to study these types of events are still lacking. Here, we consider four case studies, each associated with a specific event type and a research question, to illustrate how the key elements of compound events (e.g., analytical tools and relevant physical effects) can be identified. These case studies show that (a) impacts on crops from hot and dry summers can be exacerbated by preconditioning effects of dry and bright springs. (b) Assessing compound coastal flooding in Perth (Australia) requires considering the dynamics of a non‐stationary multivariate process. For instance, future mean sea‐level rise will lead to the emergence of concurrent coastal and fluvial extremes, enhancing compound flooding risk. (c) In Portugal, deep‐landslides are often caused by temporal clusters of moderate precipitation events. Finally, (d) crop yield failures in France and Germany are strongly correlated, threatening European food security through spatially compounding effects. These analyses allow for identifying general recommendations for studying compound events. Overall, our insights can serve as a blueprint for compound event analysis across disciplines and sectors., Plain Language Summary: Many societal and environmental impacts from events such as droughts and storms arise from a combination of weather and climate factors referred to as a compound event. Considering the complex nature of these high‐impact events is crucial for an accurate assessment of climate‐related risk, for example to develop adaptation and emergency preparedness strategies. However, compound event research has emerged only recently, therefore our ability to analyze these events is still limited. In practice, studying compound events is a challenging task, which often requires interaction between experts across multiple disciplines. Recently, compound events were divided into four types to aid the framing of research on this topic, but guidelines on how to study these four types are missing. Here, we take a pragmatic approach and—focusing on case studies of different compound event types—illustrate how to address specific research questions that could be of interest to users. The results allow identifying recommendations for compound event analyses. Furthermore, through the case studies, we highlight the relevance that compounding effects have for the occurrence of landslides, flooding, vegetation impacts, and crop failures. The guidelines emerged from this work will assist the development of compound event analysis across disciplines and sectors., Key Points: Using case studies representative of four main compound event types we show how compound event‐related research questions can be tackled. We present user‐friendly guidelines for compound event analysis applicable to different compound event types. We demonstrate that compound events cause vegetation impacts, coastal flooding, landslides, and continental‐scale crop yield failures., European COST action DAMOCLES, NERC, Swiss National Science Foundation, Helmholtz Initiative and Networking Fund, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Scientific Employment Stimulus 2017, Italian Ministry of University and Research, European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, AXA Research Fund for support, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology

This brief research report is aimed to make a first approach to the study of the type of precipitation associated with a set of atmospheric river (AR) events over the Atlantic region of Galicia. Fifteen ARs that made landfall in the Spanish region of Galicia have been analyzed using the 2B-GEOPROF and 2C-PRECIP-COLUMN from the CloudSat cloud profiling radar (CPR). An estimation of the relative ratio between warm and cold precipitation associated with each event is provided. Broadly speaking, cold precipitation accounts for 80% of the total. This value is slightly higher than the already stated for Pacific AR events. However, similar mean rain rates (0.35 mm/h for the warm precipitation and 1.16 mm/h for the cold counterpart) to those reported by the literature have been obtained. In the absence of a more comprehensive and conclusive statistic, it seems that cold precipitation is predominant along the central axis of a well-developed AR. In this central core of the AR, the bulk of the moisture remains in the lower levels, and the freezing level (FL) is low. According to these results, the interaction between the warm conveyor and the cold conveyor belt may eventually raise the FL to upper levels, leading the warm fraction to play a more important —even though still secondary— role.

An analysis of 17 years of half-hourly aeronautic observations (METAR) and special observations (SPECI) in the three international airports of mainland Portugal indicates strong variations in fog properties. Fog is a rare event at Faro, a winter phenomenon in Lisbon and mainly a summer process at Porto. At both Lisbon and Porto, fog is favoured by specific synoptic circulations, here classified into a set of weather types, compatible with the strict requirements of fog formation. At the same time, however, a detailed analysis of the distribution of fog, and the classification of its onset processes, reveal a crucial dependence on local wind. This suggests that the advection of moist air from nearby sources, from the Tagus estuary at Lisbon and from the ocean at Porto, is the dominant process at both locations, despite the large differences found in the timing of those fog processes. The observational data (METAR) prior to the fog formation is used to classify the fog generation mechanism for 96.9% of the fog events at Porto, and 98.9% at Lisbon. Among the five fog types identified using a classification algorithm, cloud base lowering is the most common one at both locations, gathering half of the classified fog events, followed by advection, precipitation, and radiation. No fog event of the evaporation type was detected at both airports. The analysis of the observed horizontal visibility during the fog events revealed that cloud base lowering and radiation fog are the most intense events. The median of the minimum horizontal visibility of these two types of fog varies between 150 and 250 m, as the average ranges between 217.8 and 312.9 m. The study results have revealed a promising prefog diagnosis tool to be explored in detail in further operational context studies.

Extensive, longstanding dry and wet episodes are one of the most frequent climatic extreme events in the Iberian Peninsula. Here, we present a method for ranking regional extremes of persistent, widespread drought and wet events, considering different time scales. The method is based on the multiscalar Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) gridded dataset for the Iberian Peninsula. SPEI was computed using the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) between 1901 and 2016 using a log-logistic probability distribution function. The Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) was computed through the Penmann-Monteith equation. The ranking classification method is based on the evaluation of the magnitude of an event, which is obtained after considering both the area affected respectively by the dryness or wetness – defined by SPEI values over a certain threshold – and its intensity in each grid point. A sensitivity analysis on the impact of different thresholds to define dry and wet events is performed. A comprehensive dataset of rankings of the most extreme, prolonged, widespread dry and wet periods in the Iberian Peninsula is presented, for aggregated time scales of 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. Results show that in the Iberian Peninsula there is not a region more prone to the occurrence of any of these long-term (dry and/or wet) most extreme events.

The Iberian Peninsula has experienced on recent years an increasing number of high impact cyclones (e.g. Klaus, 23-24 January 2009 and Xynthia, 27-28 February 2010; Liberato et al. 2011; 2013) associated with extreme precipitation events, flooding and damage to infrastructure. Recent examples are cyclones Elsa and Fabien, on December 2019, which forced more than 250 people to be evacuated from their homes in Mondego region villages, in central Portugal, due to rising river waters and infrastructure disruption .However until now not enough evidence has been gathered to confirm a general and significant increase in the frequency and intensity of these events in the north-eastern Atlantic. In fact, according to Karremann et al. (2016) the maximum in recent years is comparable to other stormy periods in the 1960s and 1980s, suggesting that their frequency of occurrence undergoes strong multi-decadal variability.In this study a high impact extratropical cyclones dataset developed in the framework of project “WEx-Atlantic - Weather Extremes in the Euro Atlantic Region: Assessment and Impacts” is used to assess the variability in frequency and intensity of these events over the last decades in the Iberian Peninsula. A ranking of daily precipitation days for the Iberian Peninsula taking into account not only the area affected but also its average intensity (Ramos et al. 2014) is also used. Additionally, a spatio-temporal variability of sea surface temperature (SST) is performed in the North Atlantic, using ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis data for the period 1979-2019. Finally the relevance of the North Atlantic SST variability on the intensity of these extreme events affecting the Iberian Peninsula on recent winter seasons is discussed. AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to acknowledge the financial support by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (FCT), through projects PTDC/CTA-MET/29233/2017 and UIDB/50019/2020 – IDL. A.M. Ramos is supported by Scientific Employment Stimulus 2017 from FCT (CEECIND/00027/2017).ReferencesKarremann et al. (2016) Atmos. Sci. Let., 17: 354-361 DOI: 10.1002/asl.665Liberato et al. (2011) Weather, 66: 330-334 DOI: 10.1002/wea.755Liberato et al. (2013) Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 13: 2239-2251 DOI: 10.5194/nhess-13-2239-2013Ramos et al. (2014) Atmos. Sci. Let., 15: 328–334, DOI: 10.1002/asl2.507